Here is the News !!

With
the Mubarak month of Ramadaan almost upon us, there will be an upsurge
of listenership of existing radio stations and those that acquire
temporary broadcast licences.

Alhamdulillah, SANHA welcomes this in the spirit of Ramadaan and
community building. (We commented on this as far back as March 2007 – see e- bulletin no 10 Editorial)

On a cautionary note, irresponsible journalism has the potential of
marring the joy of the month and creating divisions in the Ummah that
last beyond Ramadaan.

We reproduce hereunder an abridged version of a letter of advice
sent to a prominent radio station which has been acknowledged. We
believe it can serve as a reference code of conduct for all of us. It
reads as follows:

Assalaamu ´alaikum w.w.

We give praise and glorify Allah (SWT) and ask Him to grant you all His favours for your service to the Deen.

We congratulate you on the important role you play in educating the
Ummah with the influential power you wield through your radio
programme. May Allah (SWT) accept these endeavours.

We are concerned by the propensity of some listeners to jump to
unsubstantiated conclusions based on generalized information from your
programme, such as, "Halaal is a money-making scheme; the sad state of Halaal bodies, etc."

Lest it be misunderstood or misconstrued, let us affirm upfront, that
we have no axe to grind with yourself or the principle of your
programme. Indeed, SANHA is not averse to and indeed welcomes public
scrutiny and feedback, both positive and negative, to help improve our
services. We view robust debates in the public arena as compatible and
in perfect harmony with our values of openness and transparency.

As human beings we accept that we are prone to errors and not beyond
reproach. And certifiers too have not all endeared themselves to the
public with their conduct and must shoulder some blame for this. In
fact we go even further by saying that any malpractice by certifiers
and a lack of willingness to rectify it must be exposed to your
listeners as both an Islamic duty and of public interest. However, we
feel that it is unfair and unjust to paint SANHA with the same brush of
generalization, innuendo, hearsay and differences of opinion as you
have done from time to time which only serves to heighten tensions
between ourselves, unfortunately, to the delight of the enemies of
Islam, from both within and without, who thrive on disunity in the
Ummah.

We urge you to verify information concerning SANHA by reiterating our
open invitation to you to contact us directly on any issue. We will go
even further and make available our 24-hour contact details to ensure
that there is no delay when you require swift verification on any issue.

We will support your actions of exposing corruption and malpractices in
our industry as well as any action that would prevent harm to the
reputation of any person or party even inadvertently.

We look forward to your response to enable us to charter a course that
pleases Allah (SWT) best in our service to the Ummah on Halaal
regulation.